Chain Reaction

We get away from China in this week’s Chain Reaction and over to Africa. The past week’s election in Zimbabwe pits notorious 28-year “President” Robert Mugabe against the apparent will of his people in a closely watched contest between democracy and chaos. With inflation of 100,000% and people crawling under barbed wire fences to get out, chaos looks like its already winning.

Coming on the heels of a scary breakdown of one of Africa’s more stable countries, Kenya, last month, due doubts about election fairness led to tribal violence, this Zimbabwe election could signal that Africa is not ready to join the global business community after all.

Last December, I wrote an optimistic article about the prospects for Africa to become the growth engine of the 21^st century. I believe this in part because of the basic demographics and economics of almost 1 billion people hungry for the trappings of our modern consumer economy. Having spent 20 years studying the technology and mechanics of the global supply chain, to me it seems obvious that great companies like Caterpillar and Nokia can easily push their demand-driven supply networks into even the most challenging of markets. Companies like Unilever, Coca-Cola, and SABMiller have been doing it for decades.

 Reactions to the December article were largely sympathetic but more than a few readers confessed that they didn’t see Africa ever really changing. We are republishing the article here in its entirety and ask supply chain and business people: can Africa become the growth engine of the 21^st century?. Let me know your thoughts.